Formation of the Entente

The Anglo-Russian negotiations, suspended at the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese war, were resumed at the earliest possible moment after the conclusion of the Portsmouth agreement. Sir Charles Hardinge, the British ambassador to Russia since May 16, 1904, in early September 1905 sent a note of congratulations on the signing of the peace to Count Lamsdorf, the minister of foreign affairs. In response, Lamsdorf sent a message which included an invitation to resume the negotiations. Behind this cordial exchange was the goodwill built up in the course of the amicable settlement earlier that year of the North Sea incident, in part also by Hardinge's persistent efforts to overcome Russian ill-will toward Britain generated during the war. Behind the cordial exchange was also the weakened condition of the Russian Empire and the restraint on her freedom of action by the emergence on her eastern and western flanks of Japan and Germany.

It was also in September that Hardinge had a significant interview with Nikolai Genrikhovich Hartwig, the immediate assistant of Lamsdorf, who gave more specific encouragement to the resumption of the Anglo-Russian negotiations. Hartwig stated that Anglo-Russian cooperation in Macedonia and Crete showed that there was no need for conflict between these nations in the Near East and hoped for a situation in which Russia could be left “a free hand for the impending struggle with Germany on the shores of the Bosphorus.” Hartwig concluded by saying that Russia had no real ambition to invade India, that the existing Afghan–Russian frontier was ideal, and that he was sure that a satisfactory settlement could be reached with respect to Persia.